


In Patterns Unfamiliar

by niltia



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Vulcan Culture, Vulcan Science Academy (Star Trek)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 22:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17948771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niltia/pseuds/niltia
Summary: After Paul is transferred to the Vulcan Science Academy, Michael asks an old friend to check up on him. Her well-intended suggestion that Paul investigate a Vulcan method of handling grief has unintended consequences.





	In Patterns Unfamiliar

**Author's Note:**

> Diverges from canon after s2e01. Thanks very much to tptigger for beta reading, and thanks to yasaman for rescuing my plot from itself. 
> 
> Title is from the song “Patterns of Fairytales” by The National. Rude Vulcan commentary stolen from 30 Rock, just because.

It had been many years since T’Mek had heard from Michael Burnham, but the passage of time had not dimmed her respect for Michael Burnham’s formidable intelligence and her capacity to quickly and deeply understand complex scientific concepts. It was for this reason that T’Mek immediately returned Michael Burnham’s call when she returned to her office to discover a missed message from her former classmate. 

“ _Sochya eh dif,_ ” Michael Burnham greeted her when the video call connected.

“ _Dif-tor heh smusma,_ ” T’Mek responded. “How can I be of assistance, Michael Burnham?”

“Please, T’Mek, call me Michael. We have known each other for longer than students entering the Academy have been alive.”

“Certainly, Michael. It is good to hear from you after all this time.”

Michael smiled. It was not an expression T’Mek was used to seeing on her face from school. She had always been a very serious child, determined to prove that she could keep up with her Vulcan peers. “It is good to see you as well. You are still a member of the teaching faculty at the Vulcan Science Academy, correct? Botany?”

“That is correct.”

“A colleague of mine has recently been offered a teaching position at the Academy. Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets. We are en route to drop him off on Vulcan.”

“Ah yes, the astromycologist. The department head was sufficiently impressed by his work to offer him a position here apparently on a whim, very unusual. I read one of his papers. It was not to my interest.”

Michael ducked her head to hide a smirk. Her mannerisms had become much more human in her time away. “Yes, it’s not for everyone. And I’ve noticed his academic writing can get a bit overwrought. However, Commander Stamets is quite intelligent and I’m sure he’ll be an asset to the Academy.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” T’Mek said. “Solen would not have hired him otherwise. Is there something in particular you wished to discuss about this arrangement?”

“There is. Commander Stamets has become my friend during my time on the Discovery and we are all sad to see him leave. He has recently experienced the loss of his partner and he doesn’t appear to be coping well. I believe that his decision to accept Solen’s offer was largely motivated by this, although I am sure he will do well in this position. I know you are not particularly familiar with human culture and their various methods of handling grief, but I would appreciate it if you could keep an eye on him.”

“You would like me to spy on him? I may not know humans well, but—”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m just asking you to look out for him. Help him acclimate to the environment at the Academy. Befriend him, if you’re willing and he seems amenable.”

“Alright. If he managed to befriend you, I’m sure I will find him tolerable.” 

“Thank you, T’Mek. If I have the opportunity to take shore leave while we’re visiting Vulcan, would you be free for dinner?”

“I could make time. Keep me apprised of your situation,” T’Mek said. “It would be good to see you again.”

“You as well. I’m afraid I have to return to my duties now, but it has been good to see your face.”

“ _Sochya eh dif,_ Michael.”

“ _Dif-tor heh smusma.”_

-

T’Mek did not meet Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets until he had already been at the Academy for two weeks. Or, at least, she presumed the human man in the staff break room was Paul Stamets. He was the only human she had seen since her dinner appointment with Michael, and he was very pale, which was consistent with the impolite description Syvat had provided after meeting him. _The new human has a face like someone kicked a hole in a bag of kreyla flour,_ he had said. T’Mek did not particularly care for Syvat.

“Oh, hello,” the human who was presumably Paul Stamets said, turning to see who had entered the room. “Uh, _dif-tor heh smusma,_ ” he said, raising his hand in greeting.

“The correct greeting is _sochya eh dif,_ ” T’Mek informed him. He winced. “What you said is meant to be the response. Did Michael teach you that? Your pronunciation was … acceptable.”

“Ah, yeah, she did. I’m sorry, who are you exactly?”

“I am T’Mek. I assume you are Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets. I have known Michael since we were children and she asked me to ‘keep an eye on’ you.” 

“Of course she did,” Stamets said, looking back down at the mug of tea he was fussing with. “She’s going to make a good captain someday.” He contemplated his tea for another several seconds. “Well. T’Mek. It was nice to meet you,” he said, and then left the break room without waiting for a response from her.

T’Mek was no expert on humans, but even for an interaction between Vulcans, that had not gone particularly well. Commander Stamets did not seem interested in small talk, a sentiment that T’Mek generally shared. She would have to think more on how to fulfill her promise to Michael. 

-

By the time the next academic term started, T’Mek had not made much progress. She reported as much to Michael the next time she called.

“So he’s not talking to _anyone_?” Michael asked, her concern etching lines into her otherwise cheerful face. Her reinstatement into Starfleet was treating her well. 

“Of course he is talking to people,” T’Mek said. “He has been assigned several lecture courses.”

“You know what I mean, T’Mek. Human social needs are different. They require significantly more contact, for one.”

T’Mek made a face of disgust. “That is —”

“ _Social_ contact, T’Mek. Though they do also generally require some physical contact for optimal emotional health. We like to talk about our emotions, or at least about things other than work.”

T’Mek found it interesting that Michael seemed to switch freely between including herself in the category of ‘humans’ and not. She made a considering noise. “Commander Stamets does appear to spend most of his time alone in his office grading assignments. I take it this is not normal for humans?”

“It may be normal for him now but it’s probably not healthy. He spent most of his time on duty here surrounded by staff, and he shared quarters with his partner so it’s likely he didn’t spend much of his downtime alone, either.”

They both sat in silence for a moment. “To be frank with you, Michael, I am concerned about treading on his grief,” T’Mek confessed. “I am out of my depth and do not want to make a misstep.”

“You’re not wrong to be concerned, but self-isolation is not typically a healthy long-term coping mechanism for humans. I’m concerned that he’s going to cut himself off from everyone he knew here and try to pretend that the last several years of his life never happened, to be honest. I think he would just forget all his emotions and focus on science for the rest of his life if he could.”

T’Mek was confused by Michael’s negative tone about this. “Is that not an appropriate response? To distance oneself from the immediacy of the grief and refocus on something productive?”

“Not for humans, it’s not,” Michael said. “At least not permanently.”

“I will defer to your expertise on this, then,” T’Mek said.

“I have a suggestion. How would you feel about visiting him in his office and bringing him a cup of tea? Humans often use food as a gesture of commiseration or comfort. This would also allow you to interact with him in a private space in which he feels comfortable but still do so in a manner which is consistent with Vulcan social norms.”

T’Mek considered this. “I am amenable to this course of action.” 

Michael smiled brightly. As strange as it was to see her behave in such an un-Vulcan manner, T’Mek found that it suited her. “Excellent,” Michael said. “I truly appreciate your willingness to help me with this. It’s a relief to know he won’t be alone. Now, are you planning on competing in this year’s kal-toh tournament?”

-

The next day, T’Mek brought an extra mug to the Academy from her home and prepared a cup of _n’gaan_ spice tea from the supply she kept in her office. While it could be replicated or purchased from the student cafeteria, she felt that some things were better done by hand. 

She figured that the best course of action would be surprise, as Commander Stamets was likely to turn down an invitation for tea if he was truly avoiding people. This tactic decided, she took the cup of tea and walked over to Stamets’ office. 

“ _Sochya eh dif,_ ” she greeted him from the open doorway to his small office, the heat of the mug warming her hands. 

“ _Dif-tor heh smusma,_ ” he replied, employing the greeting correctly this time. “How can I help you?”

“Please drink this tea,” T’Mek said, stepping into his office and holding the mug out over his desk. She felt significantly more uncomfortable than she expected to, which she set aside to examine later. She had found that the emotion of discomfort often indicated areas in which she could achieve growth. 

“Um, _chaya t’not_ ,” Stamets said, taking the cup of tea from her outstretched hand. 

“You are welcome,” T’Mek said. “Your pronunciation has improved.”

Stamets looked surprised at this. “I’m glad to hear it. I’ve been practicing, and Burnham has been helping me when she calls, but I figured she was only saying that I was passable to spare my feelings.”

T’Mek raised an eyebrow at that. “I have never known Michael to be one to spare someone’s feelings in the face of a constructive truth, but perhaps her journeys away from Vulcan have changed her.”

Stamets laughed a little. “No, no, you’re right. I should probably take her at her word. I’m sure she’d say something about the value of experiencing discomfort in order to achieve personal growth or whatever.” He took a sip from the cup of tea T’Mek had given him and promptly choked. 

Had T’Mek picked a variety of tea that was unpalatable to humans? She was certain she had seen Michael drink this particular tea before. 

Stamets looked embarrassed, though T’Mek did not understand why. Taste was a matter of biology. “It’s, ah, it’s a bit spicy,” he said. 

“It is _n’gaan_ spice tea,” T’Mek informed him. “Michael suggested that I should bring you tea in order to engage you in positive social contact, as is required for your species’ emotional health.”

This startled an actual laugh out of him, much more genuine than the previous. “Of course she did. Well, thank you for the attempt.”

T’Mek wasn’t sure what was humorous about the situation, but laughter was a positive expression of emotion for humans, so it seemed like Michael’s suggestion had been apt. 

Stamets took another sip of the tea and did not choke this time. “This is actually pretty good. It reminds me of something, but I can’t place what.”

“I’m pleased to hear you enjoy it, Commander Stamets. I’ll leave you to your grading now, as I must return to my own.”

“Please, call me Paul. If Burnham is going to coerce you into ‘engaging me in positive social contact,’ I’d rather you call me that than my title. I never wanted to be in Starfleet anyway.”

-

T’Mek decided to read up on human friendship rituals prior to her next attempt to provide social contact to Stamets. She was under the impression that human friendships were not that dissimilar from Vulcan ones, but she had also never had a human friend.

Her research suggested that humans in many of Earth’s regions showed their concern for each other in times of illness or grief by bringing small gifts to each other's homes. It seemed to her like a physical manifestation of the Vulcan practice of sharing emotions telepathically during mourning. T’Mek did not know where Stamets’ actual lodgings were, but he appeared to live in his office most of the time, so bringing him a gift there would probably be compliant with the ritual.

A suitable gift appeared to her while she was preparing supper the next evening. She had misjudged the freshness of a _plomeek_ and inadvertently allowed it to mold before she could use it. It was a waste, but it also provided her with an opportunity. 

She brought in the _plomeek_ and asked the Vulcan mycology specialist in the department for assistance with culturing it. T’Sel provided her with a flat, shallow glass dish full of a gel she called ‘flatroot flake agar’ into which T’Mek transferred some of the mold. T’Sel then took the dish, placed a lid on it, sealed it with a self-sealing film, and added it to a stack in one of her incubators. “Come back in three days,” T’Sel told her.

Three days later, T’Mek returned to collect the dish from T’Sel. “I don’t know why you wanted this, it is not an unusual specimen,” T’Sel commented as she handed back the dish. 

The gel in the dish had been almost totally obscured by a shallow mound of fluffy blue-green mold, little white filaments reaching up to touch the lid like textile fibers. No wonder T’Sel had sealed the dish. It looked liable to escape, like it was reaching up to push the lid right off. 

Even though T’Sel had said this was a commonplace specimen (T’Mek certainly wouldn’t be able to tell one way or the other; her interest was solely in plants, not their pathogens), T’Mek felt certain it would be of interest to Stamets. He was probably most familiar with the fungal species related to his own research, which as far as T’Mek was aware were only the most distant cousins of anything found on Vulcan.

She decided to make another cup of tea to bring along, just in case. She had found her personal mug cleaned and returned to her desk the day after her last visit, without her ever sighting Stamets outside his office. If the mold did not go over well, she was sure the tea at least would.

She set the tea on his desk first. “ _Sochya eh dif._ ”

“ _Dif-tor heh smusma,_ T’Mek. _Shaya tonat na’ theris-masu_.” He took a sip and she was pleased to note he did not choke this time.

“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked after a moment of silence. 

“I have brought you a gift in accordance with your human grief customs,” T’Mek said, holding out the dish she’d been carrying. Stamets made a facial expression that T’Mek was sure was negative, but then he seemed to finally realize what was in her hand, and he took the dish from her, holding it up in front of his face.

“Oh, wow. This little guy’s a lid lifter, isn’t he?” he said, turning the dish over to look at the underside of the plate. “An interesting color, too. I wonder if this is a melanin pigment or something more like pyocyanin. Where did you get this?”

“A vegetable,” T’Mek said. Stamets looked at her expectantly. She wasn’t sure for what. “A root vegetable,” T’Mek clarified.

Stamets made a ‘hmph’ noise and returned his attention to the dish. Despite being Vulcan and living on Vulcan her entire life, T’Mek was not sure she had ever before felt so thoroughly dismissed by someone’s facial expression. “Can I keep this?” he asked.

“It is for you,” T’Mek said. She thought she had made that clear, but perhaps he had been distracted by the mold. 

“Thank you! This is great,” he told her, smiling brightly. T’Mek found herself charmed by this sudden enthusiasm, despite her better judgment. She was glad that Stamets appeared to enjoy her gift, but she still didn’t understand what was so exciting about fungi. Plants were far more interesting. 

-

T’Mek was _very_ surprised the next day when she looked up from her grading to see Stamets hovering in her office doorway uncertainly, holding a PADD in one hand and a steaming cup of tea in the other. 

After the customary greeting, Paul set the cup of tea down on her desk tentatively. “Uh, I wanted to give you your mug back. Thank you for letting me use it.”

T’Mek picked it up and inhaled the steam. It smelled a little off. “You did not have to make me tea in order to return it,” she said.

“Well, since you’re trying to learn about some Earth customs, it’s customary where I’m from that you don’t return a dish empty when someone gives you food, so.” He shrugged. “I also wanted to show you something.” He set the PADD down on her desk and activated the screen. 

T’Mek took a sip of the tea. “This was not made correctly,” she informed him. He flushed. The way in which some humans turned red so easily was very strange, especially in response to sun exposure. There were many things to which many of them did not seem well-adapted. 

“Uh, sorry?” 

“There is no purpose in apologizing for not already having a skill which there is no reason for you to have learned. I will teach you next time I make this tea,” T’Mek told him. 

Stamets cleared his throat. T’Mek had clearly made him uncomfortable somehow, but she did not dwell on it. “Anyway,” he said. 

He tapped the screen of the PADD on her desk to access some photographs. “So that mold you gave me is structurally very similar to the Earth species _Aspergillus fumigatus_ , despite not sharing any recent common ancestors. I prepared some slides so you could see!”

Ah. T’Mek would have to feign some enthusiasm about the mold in order not to alienate him. 

“So I did a tape preparation of the hyphae, those are the little white strands that were growing out of the top, and stained them with lactophenol cotton blue, which is a pretty common stain in Earth mycology but you guys don’t seem to use? Anyway, it’s hyaline, which is why you get this blue color.”

He flipped the PADD up to show her a photo of, she supposed, mold. “This is under 40x magnification. So these are the conidia, which are the spores produced by this type of fungus, and they grow in these chains which....”

T’Mek was not paying particularly much attention to what Stamets was saying, distracted by the photograph. This mold was _beautiful_. “What are these?” she asked, pointing at a beautiful pale blue fan-like structure which reminded her of the tail of an Earth bird she had seen once. A _peacock_ , she recalled. 

“Uh, as I already said, the hyphae generate conidiophores, which end in vesicles, this structure here, which produce phialides from which the conidia....” T’Mek tuned him out again. His unfamiliar terminology was useless to her. She had no idea that fungi looked like this on a microscopic level. They were like tiny flowering plants. If someone had shown her this years ago, she might have been more interested.

“Please send me more of these photographs,” T’Mek said. 

“Okay, yes, absolutely!” Stamets said. “I can also send you some introductory texts about the morphology of fungi?” This was the most lively she had seen him in the several seasons he had already been here. She was looking forward to reporting this successful social interaction to Michael.

“No, thank you,” she told him. He looked very slightly less enthused. “But I will take any photographs you have. These organisms are visually pleasing in a way I did not anticipate.”

“I’m glad you think so too,” Stamets said. 

\- 

T’Mek continued bringing tea to Stamets in his office after that, although his good cheer from that day seemed to be an outlier. She kept bringing him samples of mold anyway. She may have even, once or twice, intentionally allowed something to go bad for that very reason. She knew that if she truly just wanted photographs, she could have asked the actual Vulcan mycologists on staff, but she had come to appreciate the ritual of the exchange.

Stamets also began to occasionally visit her in her own office. It was on one of these such occasions that she heard him mention someone he knew other than Michael for the first time. 

“I visited that garden you recommended,” Stamets said. “It was very peaceful. It’s hard to sit and be alone with my thoughts sometimes here in the Academy, but it was easier there.” 

T’Mek nodded encouragingly, although she wasn’t quite sure what he meant by the first part of his statement. “Many people use the gardens for meditation.”

“The area of the city it’s in was really interesting, too,” Stamets said. “Actually, the whole city is interesting. It’s like there are a lot of different smaller cities that grew together over time.”

“In some ways, that is what happened. As Vulcan has gained allies in other species over time and welcomed them here, many people have moved and brought their own architectural styles and businesses to different parts of the city. There are also areas where very modern facilities have been built next to ancient ones, either because other buildings were replaced or were damaged during conflicts,” T’Mek said.

Stamets nodded. “Yeah, there are many cities on Earth like that too, although not so much where I’m from. ShiKahr does remind me of the metropolitan area around the university where I did my first bachelor’s degree, though. Two hundred years ago it was several smaller cities, but now the only way to tell you’ve left one satellite city and crossed into another is the differences in city planning styles and architecture. It was also very hot, like it is here,” he said, laughing a little. 

T’Mek was about to ask him what his first bachelor’s degree was in, as she was under the impression that humans typically got just one of that type of degree if they pursued higher education, but the look on his face stopped her. He didn’t seem like he was present here in the moment, instead focused on some memory. “I wish I had explored that city more, honestly,” he said. “Hugh grew up there, but I didn’t know him then. Maybe if I had met him earlier… well.” Stamets seemed to catch himself then.

“Who is Hugh?” T’Mek asked. Stamets had never mentioned anyone from Earth or Starfleet other than Michael to her, so he must be someone important.

Stamets, however, acted as though he hadn’t heard her. “Would you like some more tea?” he asked, getting up abruptly from where he’d been sitting in one of her office chairs. “I’ll go make some,” he said, and left the room. He didn’t actually take any of her tea with him, and he didn’t return for several minutes. When he did come back, he was empty-handed and his eyes were reddened in that strange way that humans got. T’Mek decided not to press the issue.

-

It had reached the season on Vulcan where this hemisphere was experiencing longer, hotter, and generally sunnier days, and Stamets did not appear to be acclimating well. He had been fine in the previous seasons, during which average temperatures were already higher than humans generally found comfortable, but it seemed to be the sun that was finally getting to him.

The fourth time T’Mek saw Stamets around the Academy bearing the telltale human signs of too much sun exposure, she found herself on the verge of frustration. The correct way to deal with frustration was to find an appropriate action to take that would alleviate the source, so that is what she did.

She carefully harvested a pad from one of her _cir-cen_ , a succulent variety found more commonly in the southern hemisphere. After a moment’s consideration, she also decided on one of the plants themselves that she was willing to give up. 

The last time she had prepared this particular salve had been many years ago, back when she was still a student, but it was fairly straightforward. The single pad provided just enough to fill a small jar she had been saving to reuse, which she brought to work the next day and radiosterilized in one of the laboratory facilities. She also brought with her the plant she had selected. 

She presented both to Stamets in his office after he returned from his first lecture of the day. “It is unacceptable that you keep allowing yourself to become sunburnt,” she said. “The oil of this plant is known to aid in healing of these burns. I suggest that you use it.” 

Stamets opened the jar and, inexplicably, smelled the contents. 

“Do not eat that,” T’Mek said. He recapped the jar without putting any on. 

She also set the plant on one of his office chairs. “This requires sunlight.” 

Stamets rolled his eyes. 

“This requires more sunlight than you do,” she clarified. “Place it on a balcony, if you have one, or anywhere outside. Do not water it more than once a week.”

“It’s a cactus,” he said, poking at it.

“It is a _succulent_ ,” T’Mek corrected. “A _cir-cen_ , native to Vulcan.”

He looked up at her in surprise, his strange pale eyebrows lifted. 

“This is Vulcan?” he asked, picking up the pot and rotating it. 

“I am a Vulcan plant biologist. Did you expect it not to be Vulcan?”

“This is really neat!” Stamets said. His enthusiasm was, as always, difficult to predict. “We have a plant like this back home. It’s so interesting how nature tends to evolve the same things everywhere, Hugh would have —”

He paused and looked up at her, cautiously, as though waiting for some kind of reaction. T’Mek attempted to keep her facial expression open and neutral, despite her curiosity. She expected that a reaction of any kind might put him off continuing, the way sudden movement might startle a wild _quattil_.

“My partner,” he clarified, finally continuing. “He would have loved this.”

Ah. T’Mek had suspected, based on some things Michael had said, but she wasn’t certain. “It is indeed a beautiful thing. He had good taste,” T’Mek said carefully, hoping it was an appropriate thing to say. 

It must have been sufficient, because it wasn’t the last time she heard about Hugh. Stamets talked a little more about his partner each time they met and she encouraged it. She knew that the way that humans experienced grief was much sharper and more immediate than the Vulcan way, because they unfortunately lacked the capacity to telepathically share and thereby alleviate the burden the way Vulcans did, but she hoped that this would in some way serve the same purpose. 

-

When T’Mek updated Michael on her recent conversations with Stamets, she seemed very pleased. “That is great progress,” Michael said. “After it happened, especially because of the … circumstances surrounding his death, I think we all found it very difficult to talk about it.”

T’Mek heard the telltale swish of an automatic door opening on the other end of the call.

“Oh, hello, Tilly,” Michael said to someone out of view of the screen. 

“Oh, are you on a call?” another voice said distantly. “I can come back later!”

“No, it’s alright. T’Mek, would you like to meet another of my friends?” Michael asked. 

“I certainly would,” T’Mek said. “Your Commander Stamets has turned out to be an excellent companion, so I am sure meeting any friend of yours would be an enriching experience.”

A human woman with a very large amount of bright red hair appeared within view of the screen, almost bodily shoving Michael over to see. “You know Commander Stamets?” she asked.

Michael laughed and moved over slightly on the bench (or bed, possibly?) on which she was seated, but remained in close contact with the newcomer. They must be very dear friends. It pleased T’Mek to see Michael adapting to her human environment. 

“T’Mek, this is my good friend Ensign Sylvia Tilly. Tilly, this is my childhood schoolmate T’Mek, who now teaches at the Vulcan Science Academy.”

“It’s nice to meet you, T’Mek! Please call me Tilly. You know Stamets?” she asked again. She was very energetic. 

“I do indeed. He is teaching in the same department as I am and Michael asked me to keep an eye on him when he first arrived here,” T’Mek said. Michael winced visibly at that. “Is that something I should not have said?”

Tilly laughed and nudged Michael’s shoulder with her own. “Oh, she’s just embarrassed over her invasive caretaking tendencies, but I already know how she is.” Her expression turned more serious. “But actually, is he doing okay?”

T’Mek looked to Michael for confirmation that this sort of discussion was appropriate information to share by human customs, and Michael nodded. “Michael would be the first to tell you that I am no expert on human emotions, but I believe that he is gradually learning how to handle his grief. He has recently begun talking a little bit about his deceased partner, which Michael informs me is generally considered beneficial amongst your species.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Tilly said. “Wait, do you guys just… not talk about it?” Tilly looked to Michael. “Am I allowed to ask that?”

It was considerate of Tilly to be concerned over Vulcan desires for privacy, but in this instance T’Mek felt comfortable sharing at least a little information. “Our telepathic abilities allow us to perform a ritual among family members in which we share some of the burden of grieving amongst ourselves in a way that does not involve verbal communication. We still experience the loss as deeply as humans do, as far as I understand, but it is less acute and we are less isolated in our grief. There are also other practices we engage in which I believe are different from human customs.”

“It would be great if we could do that,” Tilly said. “This is hard. There’s a ship’s counselor but it’s still hard to talk to him and I don’t think Stamets went to see him at all honestly as far as I could tell, and it’s not like I haven’t known people who died before, but Dr. Culber is the first person I’ve really known and been friends with who I’ve seen die, and —”

Michael picked up Tilly’s hand and held it. Michael and T’Mek shared a look which T’Mek knew to mean that they had both seen much more loss than this and they were grieving for the fact that Tilly would someday too. 

“Grief is difficult even for me, and I have the benefit of both human and Vulcan ways of coping,” Michael said.

“Really?” Tilly asked. “Would you mind teaching me some stuff? I do what the counselor tells me but it’s still....”

“Me too, Tilly.” Turning back to T’Mek, Michael said, “It’s been a rough couple of years. Stamets’ partner is not the only loss we’ve suffered.”

They sat there silently for a moment. “I’m sorry, T’Mek, I think I’m going to cut this call short. Please forward me that paper you mentioned earlier about carcinisation when you have the opportunity, it sounded very interesting. I’ll call you at our usual time next week?”

“Of course.”

“ _Sochya eh dif,_ ” Michael said, freeing her arm from around Tilly in order to make the accompanying gesture. 

“ _Dif-tor heh smusma,_ ” T’Mek said, and cut the call.

-

Paul Stamets had been at the Academy for almost half a Vulcan year before T’Mek realized that, even though he was improving at feigning it, he really was not doing very well. 

T’Mek had prepared tea to take to his office, as per their usual ritual, but since she had a meeting scheduled later in the day she was stopping by before his lecture rather than after. As she approached his office, she heard a noise that made her hesitate. 

She paused in the hallway, waiting, but did not hear it again. She approached the room slowly, not sure what she was expecting. 

Through the doorway she could see that Paul was sitting at his desk, his face in his hands, the lights dim. She suspected, although she still perceived herself to be quite unfamiliar with human emotional expressions, that he was either crying or on the verge of it. 

She turned around and left without letting him know she was there. When she returned later in the day, she apologized for missing their usual time due to a meeting, and did not let him know what she had seen. It was not in her nature to be duplicitous, but she was learning why humans sometimes considered it necessary.


End file.
